Stuart Emmons (Emmons Design) on design and politics

Stuart Emmons will speak in an upcoming edition of CPID Talks on Friday, April 29. Stuart is an architect, urban designer, planner, craftsman, writer, advocate, manager, and activist. He is also a candidate in the race to become the next City Commissioner of Portland.

Stuart attended the School for American Craftsman at Rochester Institute of Technology, the London College of Furniture, and holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute and a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University. Before attending Pratt, Stuart studied architecture and political science at Portland State University from 1979-1981. He leads Emmons Design, an architecture and planning firm which strives to bring fresh thinking and design to every project after research and listening. After decades of hands-on planning and design projects, Emmons' priorities now are focused on schools and affordable housing. These issues, as well as homelessness, are also among the key issues of his campaign.

In addition to work in design, Stuart has been active in several large preservation campaigns.

He co-chairs the Friends of Memorial Coliseum with Brian Libby, leading a successful campaign in 2009 to convince the City of Portland to abandon their plans to demolish Memorial Coliseum and replace it with a minor league baseball stadium. He has also worked with Nathaniel Kahn, the son of the architect Louis Kahn, as co-chairs of Save the Salk, the massive international campaign they launched in 1993 to try to stop the building of an addition in the eucalyptus grove at the entry to the Salk Institute, a masterpiece of modern architecture designed by Louis Kahn in 1967.

The focus of Stuart’s talk will be "Portland Potential." He will discuss Oregon values, Portland values, our place in time related to other large cities in the US, and how these values can guide us through our challenges; get ourpriorities repositioned for maximum positive impact; get our reputation for excellence in planning, design and sustainability reestablished; raise up people left behind (so many more can enjoy the Portland phenomenon); and work to a city that is better than any of us think even possible, with a major improvement of social issues.